The black hole of Andalucía: History seen through a Spanish telescope
Sunday, April 21, 2019 @ 2:34 PM
IT'S NOW 10 days since one of the greatest breakthroughs in space science - the publishing of the first image of a black hole - and our own knowledge of these gigantic, terrifying, bottomless pits has grown considerably since then as the incredible phenomenon gathers more and more internet searches and social media followers. Spanish scientists were key in creating the footage and, if you've ever been skiing in the Sierra Nevada, you'll be stunned to know that the powerful telescope used is based just metres from the piste where you were.
Dr José Luis Gómez, investigator at the High Council of Scientific Research (CSIC) in Spain and based at the Andalucía Astrophysics Institute (IAA) says: "I wish Einstein had been alive to see this."
And not only Einstein, but the legendary Stephen Hawking, the Brit who brought space science to the ordinary person on the street, Prince of Asturias Award winner and presenter of numerous astrophysics fairs and conferences in Spain.
"This image will be the one that appears in the textbooks," Dr Gómez, who developed one of the three algorithms used in the reconstruction, explains.
"It's like breaking through glass. For the first time, we have this photo in our hands, and now we know that we can actually study these objects.
"We're confident that this finding will open the door to a better understanding of how black holes function."
Dr Iván Martí-Vidal, from Spain's National Geographical Institute (IGN), designed the algorithms that allowed the global team to combine data from the radio-telescopes that make up the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) network and build the image.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com